


I Came For You

by timeheist



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-29
Updated: 2016-01-29
Packaged: 2018-05-16 22:38:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5843650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/timeheist/pseuds/timeheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The destruction of Starkiller Base had been a bittersweet victory for both Poe Dameron and General Organa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Came For You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Snipe_Hunt](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snipe_Hunt/gifts).



> I've taken some liberties with backstory, since we don't know when Ben Solo became Kylo Ren.
> 
> This was meant to be a commission for a friend, but it went a bit off track, so consider this an extra.

_“Bring him home, Dameron…”_

The destruction of Starkiller Base had been a bittersweet victory for both Poe Dameron and General Organa. Their reasons had been different - at least somewhat - but the cause the same. When the rest of the Resistance had been busy celebrating the First Order’s defeat and the awakening of Skywalker’s droid, he and the General had found a quiet corner from which to mourn the men they had lost on that day. The general, her husband, and Poe… well, what had he lost? It was hard to imagine what the young man was to him.

The first image that came to mind was of a puppy dog; one that had followed him around the D’Qar base with wonder in his eyes that Poe had never had the heart to discourage. He kept that image in his mind’s eye as he said goodbye to Rey, squeezed Chewie’s shoulder and climbed into his x-wing for yet another suicide mission. He was just a puppy that needed rescued from the gutter in which he had fallen. A puppy, of course, who had grown claws and teeth in his descent, and who had tortured Poe within an inch of his life the last time that they had met, but somebody in need of help all the same. 

He didn’t believe it, if he was brutally honest with himself, but the General clearly had, and he had always been incapable of denying the old girl anything. Not that she had ever told him to reign in his ‘rash’ behaviour either. He supposed the General needed someone to do the foolish missions for her which was, after all, why he was currently glaring down a puppy who could choke him with a single thought.

Damn, but was Be- Kylo Ren a sorry mess. He’d heard that Chewie had shot him - everyone talked about it - and that he’d not come up smelling like roses after the fights with Finn and Rey either - the thought of what had happened to Finn made him grip his teeth in anger - but he’d never expected this caged animal in front of him. It had only been a few days of course, so the fact that he was still walking with a limp in his step shouldn’t have surprised Poe, who had been shot in the past himself, but he’d somehow expected the First Order to take better care of their Darth Vader poster boy. His robes seemed tattered and torn, and it had been almost embarrassingly easy to taunt him out into the open, away from the safe house in the Trans-Hydian Borderlands.

“Shall I talk first this time?”

Silence in return, of course. Poe’s eyes narrowed as he scanned the forest around them, constantly on the look-out for more of the Knights of Ren. The titular apprentice himself seemed to have eyes only for the pilot, which suited Poe’s plans perfectly.

“Alright, maybe I talked last time.” Poe laughed darkly. “And maybe you did more of the,” he mimicked a force gesture with his free hand, his other still wrapped around a pistol, “thing.”

“Why are you here, Poe?”

The last word was practically spat out, as though it caused Kylo Ren genuine discomfort to utter it. Poe studied him as best he could, his head cocked slightly to one side.

He’d asked himself that question a lot in the past few days. Was it masochism? Just a favour for the General? Or was it out of kindness for the scrawny little runt of a thing that Ben Solo had been all those years ago? Was it nostalgia for the days where he’d borrowed Poe’s helmet, and it had slipped down past his eyes? Or the day that the boy had built his lightsaber and had run all the way across the base and scraped his knee to show it to him? Poe shook his head, setting his jaw. That boy had to be gone. Perhaps he should have stamped out the crush when he’d first figured things out, or perhaps he should have paid the kid better attention. His arrogance certainly hadn’t helped his fall to the dark side, but it had certainly helped fuel his interrogation. Was that why he’d agreed to the General’s plan?

Or was it because he’d known, every time that Kylo crushed Poe’s windpipe with a thought; every time he threw Poe’s head against the back of his chair; every time he had turned Poe’s head into jelly and read whatever he wanted from his memories like a book; every time their eyes had met, that Ben Solo still loved him? And that deep down, Poe felt a kind of love himself, even through the pain.

He’d moved without even thinking. Later, he would wonder if Kylo Ren had been controlling him, or if he’d moved entirely on instinct, but whatever had drive Poe Dameron to walk right up to Kylo Ren and gently remove his mask from his face might have been the turning point of the whole War.

The mask dropped into the snow, a bitter splash of dark against the light of the snow and Poe put his hand to Ben’s pale, scarred face and looked him right in the eye. His arm held tight in the sith’s white-knuckled grip he stroked his thumb across the puckered skin and let out a long, tired breath. For the longest time, neither man moved, and the whole galaxy passed them by.

“I came for you, kid.”


End file.
